On May 25, we took advantage of the presence of the SAS management team at a global level in sunny Madrid to get together with our clients and partners , whom we already consider friends, to address such a fashionable topic as advanced analytics from different angles on our SAS Innovate on Tour .
After talking about the penetration of AI in organizations or its use for fraud detection , I had the great luck of moderating a debate around the "Customer and citizen experience, two worlds with a single objective: Value interactions through the data. For this we were able to count on the presence of top-level speakers from the public administration, private sector and the consulting world: Ana María Alonso , CRM & Analytics Manager - Digital Transformation, from Total Energies , Fernando De Pablo Martín , CEO of the Digital Office of the Madrid City Council and Eloy De Sola, Head of Consumer Products & Retail de Capgemini Invent.
The ROI of the Public Administration is social
We began this very interesting conversation by listening to Fernando de Pablo , who, far from wanting to mark the differences between citizen and customer experience management, emphasized that " from a technical point of view, when providing services to customers and citizens, the process is very similar ”. In fact, he explained that for a long time in the field of tax administrations there was talk of 'customer orientation', however, de Pablo prefers the term 'citizen service' as he considers it more comprehensive. “At the end of the day, a client can change companies when it does not work or find another with better services. Therefore, it is something that we should not forget from the administrations, which have to be focused on satisfying the needs of their citizens. For example, a financial entity can make the decision to close a branch because it is not profitable, but in the case of public administrations the ROI is social ” , commented the spokesperson for the Madrid City Council.
In the case of Madrid, a large city with more than five million inhabitants, Fernando de Pablo explained that there is a double vision when it comes to providing services to citizens . The first one must be individually with fast, proactive, simple, easy to manage and multi-channel services. However, services such as mobility, which the citizen perceives as something individual, must be managed by the Madrid City Council based on global data. This globalityit has to find the perfect balance with data protection and privacy. It is paradoxical because we are in an era in which citizens share almost everything through their social networks, but administrations have to be able to guarantee respect for privacy and the correct use of data when collecting them.
Prosumer, “from active to participatory”
Ana María Alonso , from Total Energies, told us how customers in sectors such as energy have been called ' prosumers' for some time , which are characterized by a participatory profile in which " they are capable of not only contracting the supply with an electric company but to generate your own electrical energy with a plate, consume it, pour it out and get paid for it. Now customers are participatory, connected and social who even want control over their supply ”. In this way, she Alonso identifies three aspects that are key to attracting and retaining these profiles. First, they require omnichannel, personalization, and journeys.Keep it simple and digital. Another of its demands is “ the demand for value and transparency through data . They are no longer satisfied with knowing how much they consume, now they want to know when they should do it so that it is more economical for them” . And finally, Total Energies customers demand that the company become their " allies on their journey towards the energy transition, in search of sustainability with self-consumption solutions, for charging electric vehicles or managing IoT systems that allow their homes to be more efficient. Thus, the use of data becomes critical for the hyper-personalization that is so demanded of us ”.
"Muchicanalidad"
Eloy De Sola , from Capgemini Invent , proved to be attentive to what his panelmates were saying and used the term 'multi-channel', nice but very accurate to define those situations in which there are many channels of contact with the client that in some cases they are not connected to each other. In addition, he agreed with Fernando de Pablo that the concepts and foundations for building the customer and citizen experience are the same. The difference is that, in a hyper-competitive market, with products so similar to each other, purchasing decisions are based on that experience: “Building that experience and aligning it with the company's values, DNA and corporate strategy becomes essential for conversion because we find ourselves with a more complete and demanding customer. The exploitation of data becomes essential to be able to combine that part of art and science to achieve those strategies of winning companies ”. In addition, de Sola emphasized that, after COVID, customer behavior has changed radically and companies that want to be able to retain it should address these needs: "We have talked a lot about digital transformation and now it comes the truth, the data. And there's still a lot to do . "
The exploitation of data becomes essential to be able to combine that part of art and science to achieve those strategies of winning companies, explains Eloy de Sola.
In this new stage of transformation that Eloy de Sola commented on in our SAS Innovate, the Customer Journey for customers and citizens will continue to be similar, but the impact will be totally different. In the case of a bad experience in the private sphere, companies will see how they lose customers and with this they will see their income diminished. In the case of public administration, this can be paid for with one's life. That is why it is important not to forget that phrase by Theodore Roosevelt: “ Your client does not care how much you know, until he knows how much you care” .
